Author's Note: Sorry this took a bit longer than my other update[s]. I like to write them all in one sitting for the most part, rather than spread over the duration of a few days- it helps me to stay focused, and I just ended up being pretty busy. Just as a warning; there is attempted rape and talk of rape in this chapter. If that bother's you, just keep that in mind when going into it. Things are going to start progressing from here on out. It's gonna get interesting, I promise. Anyway, enjoy- and review because that'd be lovely too.
He hasn't seen her for weeks now and he's started wondering if she'd actually found a way out of the shit hole that they were currently living out the rest of their eternal lives in. Guess it's not really a life if you're just a body in a zipped bag.
She'd given him jerk-off material, that much was obvious, and before he started actually caring about where she'd went to, he spent the nights reliving the moment he'd fucked her into the wooden flooring in a puddle of her own blood. The cherry-red mess hadn't been there long and after she had left him to take another bath, Tate retreated back to the basement—only to find, later, that the mess was gone. He figured that maybe the guilt brought Violet to clean up the mess and rid the house of any evidence, but another part of him wondered if it just disappeared once it was out of sight; just like the tongue she'd put into the fridge neatly in a jar. Out of sight out of mind.
If a tree falls and no one is around to hear it—does it even make a sound?
It's just like it was back at the beginning—when she'd found out he raped her mother and she was just a child, or so it seemed now. Like back when she wasn't used to being dead and before she had realized that none of it even matters in the end anyway. He fucked her mom and she swallowed a bottle of pills in the upstairs bathroom. None of it mattered anymore because they were never getting out and the only people that could ever tell their story was themselves.
Pointless.
It was like they'd waltzed back to the start where she did everything in her power to avoid him. After a while, she didn't see the point and she'd run into him all the time—she'd drag him to the basement and torture him, but at least he had her attention some of the time. Since their encounter in the kitchen, Violet's ignored Tate's general existence. She'd had a moment of weakness and she'd done something stupid. She can't remember how many times she climbed up to the roof just to jump off head-first afterwards. There's a moment, just before you hit the ground and the world blacks out, where you see freedom. If there was a heaven, it was in those final seconds, before your bones break and your lungs cave in.
Of course she had seen him walking around, sometimes even looking through the halls for her, but she stayed hidden away from sight. To stand in his line of vision was to crumble and to fall to the floor like dust. She was not a slave to his love—if that's what she could even call it. She wasn't a slave to his hate either.
...
She's been spending her time with an XACTO blade—slicing lines in her flesh and then switching to a needle and thread to patch herself up again. It doesn't work so well because blood still traces lines down her flesh like melting candle wax down a wine bottle. She wonders how long it would take for her body to give in from blood loss; and the question brings the blonde female to cut open the stitches once again. She bleeds and mends, bleeds and mends, until she finally just bleeds and honey eyes fall back into their sockets for a few hours. Then she's alone and finally gets some sleep.
When she hears the front door opening and closing downstairs, Violet's up in seconds and flying down the hall. They never had visitors and the ghosts hardly ventured outside so the sound of someone crossing the threshold was like a siren in her ears.
Curiosity brings her eyes over the banister from upstairs—craning her neck to see past the chandelier in order to get a good view of the visitors. A group of teenage boys; about her age… about her age before she swallowed a handful of white pills, anyway.
"Hey. What are you doing?" Her voice echoes off the wall and it sounds foreign to her.
When she speaks, all three males look up and eyes flit about for a moment, before they actually find her and hone in. They hadn't anticipated her being there, of course—The Murder House was old and abandoned. 'Ghosts weren't real' and they had probably wandered in just to test that statement. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction.
"Who are you?" one of them asks, brow furrowed. He has dark hair and irises that are so blue, they're nearly white.
"Violet."
She's about to tell them to leave; maybe do something reckless to scare them off, but then she sees him. Tate is leaned out from one of the bedroom doors and he's craning his jaw to see the males downstairs—to see her talking to them. No, she's not about to let the opportunity go to waste.
Descending the stairs and joining the group of teens, she eyes them over as if dissecting each one. All taller than her and built. Two have dark hair—one with light eyes and one with eyes that are dark. They remind her of Tate's. The other is blonde and his hair is so short, it looks like he could be nearly bald. She doesn't care about their names and she doesn't care about where they're from, she just wants to follow them around. Not only does it make her feel a little less dead, but it wouldn't serve to make Tate very happy either.
She's clad in tight jeans and she's sitting cross-legged on the attic floor with the three other boys seated nearby. Violet's been telling them stories about the house—bullshitting some of it just to keep them interested and speaking loud enough so she knows Tate can hear them. She knows he's sitting down at the bottom of the attic ladder; waiting with wrung fists for the males to leave.
Of course they don't know what she really is. That she's been dead and gone for years. No, she's been playing the part of living girl well and they're all leaning in to hear more.
She learned that they all have relatively common names—Zach, Tristan, and Craig. She doesn't remember which is which and she doesn't really care because she's never going to see them again anyway.
"How do you know so much about this place?" one of them, Craig she thinks, inquires with a furrowed brow.
"I thought everyone knew about this place."
"Who's the craziest person who died here?"
The question makes her stop with words caught on her breath. Just what did the word, 'crazy' really mean anymore anyway? And so many 'crazies' occupied the Murder House, but there was one that stood out in her mind above the others. Was it because he was the 'craziest' or because he was the scariest? The two were completely different.
"Some asshole that took guns to Westfield and shot up the school in the nineties." Yeah, she settled with him just because he was sitting downstairs and he was listening very closely.
"Cool."
Their reaction irritates her, to say the least, and she works to produce a cigarette and light the cherry at the end—filling her lungs and cocking a brow. "He was a grade-A shithead with mommy issues, if you ask me," she quips. Downstairs, she knows a certain blonde-haired male ghost is cringing angrily.
...
She'd stopped paying too much attention to the teens a while ago; finishing up her cigarette and lighting another one just to keep her hands busy. They'd changed the subject and started talking about some guy they went to school with and something about a meth lab. Stupid and she's not really paying attention.
It wasn't until she hears her name uttered that she looks up from her cigarette and snaps out of her own thoughts. The blond, Tristan, was leaning over towards Zach and speaking low enough to where she can't really make out what he's saying from where she sits, few feet off. Eyes shifting in their sockets, she'd never really been all too good at reading lips either.
"What's the deal?"
They don't answer her; just keep talking amongst themselves, before looking her over. She feels like she's being dissected and all of a sudden, she regrets not telling them to piss off the second she saw them wander inside.
"No, seriously, what are you guys talking about?"
"Just about how you must have nice tits and it's a shame you hide them under oversized t-shirts." Craig nearly spits it out and he looks annoyed now—she doesn't know why, but she's sitting up straighter now and snuffing out her cigarette into the attic floor.
She thinks they must be joking, but the mood in the room has shifted to something much more sinister and she's not all too sure how to react.
"Quit it." She wasn't having it and she's not in the mood for a bunch of testosterone driven jokes that were only funny to them because she was the only female in the room. "I'm leaving." With that, she shifts on the floor to stand and walk away—but she doesn't even make it to the ladder, before a firm grip on her arm forces her to turn around with anger in her eyes.
"You're not going anywhere; not yet."
She should have known and the way that the dark- haired boy looks at her leads her to believe that he's being very serious. Just what'd she walked herself into? As dead as she is and as insignificant as it is when she gets hurt anymore; there's still fear in her heart and it kicks it into a steady beat that hammers against her rib cage. She's afraid—something she hasn't felt in a very long time.
"Let go of me." She manages to keep her voice calm and collected, despite the way her thoughts are thrashing around inside of her head.
"No."
His grip on her arm tightens and that's when she panics; trying to yanks herself free and attempting to knee him in the groin. Oh, but she's so small compared to all three of them and she hasn't felt so small in so long—it nearly breaks her. Hands that are mean and calloused hold her hard and nearly cause bruises to bloom on her porcelain flesh. They had ill intentions all along and she was stupid to have looked over it.
So stupid and naïve sometimes.
She struggles and fights, but he gets her to the floor and it doesn't take long for the other males to swoop in and help to pin her limbs down. Violet is snarling and writhing—cursing at them and spitting in the closest teen's face in retaliation.
"Fuck's sake, shut up, or I'll shove your shirt down your throat," one of them utters and everything's been moving so fast and she's been so busy trying to wrestle them off, she hadn't even realized that they'd gotten her shirt off to exposed pearly skin and a plain black bra to conceal her modesty.
"Here's an idea; how about he sucks your cock instead—because it's not going anywhere near me," she hisses, nodding between two of the males and getting just enough leeway to knee her closest attacker between the legs. A sharp groan and he draws away enough to keel over; and just as she thinks she has a chance of getting away, another takes his place—pinning her down with his weight and forcing her legs apart with his knee.
Done, done, done—she's finished and there's nothing more she can do, but wait for it to be over. She'd started to think that she had no more weaknesses; nothing left to lose if she was already dead. She'd rather jump off the Murder House roof a thousand times than be underneath a stranger while his friends hold her arms to the floor.
"Be a good little girl and keep quiet, huh? You might even like it."
She whimpers and lets her lids shield her eyes just as his hands reach into his pants. She'd never felt so weak before and it's like dying in the upstairs bathtub all over again.
Only this time it's worse, because the only person that's cradling her is bruising her body and purring disgusting things into her ear.
She hears him before she sees him—or feels the weight lifted off of her. Before the male can even undo his pants, he's off and he's across the room with blood gushing from his nose; coating the front of his shirt. A snarl's ripped through the room and it hardly even sounds human.
Violet's never seen Tate so angry in her entire existence.
The boy that was on top of her is now a few feet away, spurting blood from his nostrils and Tate's got him pinned to the attic wall by the neck with flexed fingers and eyes so wild, you'd think they could drill holes right through you. "Get the fuck out of my house, before I cut your friends' balls off and feed them to you."
The sound of knuckles hitting flesh and Tate's fist cracks against the other's temple, before shoving him to the floor.
And that was when the grip on her arms was released and Violet made a mad dash for a corner to keep safe in. Like a skittering mouse, she squirms into hiding and just wants to shower until she scrubs her flesh away.
With how much the boy had hidden away and drawn within himself lately, she'd forgotten how scary Tate really was. At the core of himself, he was a monster and he had taken lives with his bare hands- lives that were innocent and hadn't tried to rape a teenage girl in the Murder House attic.
She tries to follow as much as she can and she supposed that Tate didn't kill them solely because they'd be stuck in the house with them forever, but he certainly put all his strength into fucking them up. Broken noses and bruised egos—one of them had been shoved down the attic stairs and the others were trying to fight the ghost off in the process of getting the snot beat out of them.
Tate had nothing to lose and was a merciless entity; they had no idea just what he was capable of. Violet did and that was why she watched both with interest and a cringing guilt that tugged at her insides.
At some point, Tate manages to get his hands on a metal crate and he clubs one of them over the side of the head with it. That was when they scattered.
"If you ever come back here, I'll make sure you can't walk back out." His voice is dark and she's not even sure if the teens heard him, before they took off running down the ladder and out the front door. She doesn't care anymore, she just feels uncomfortable in her skin—like she needs to shed it off and grow something new there.
...
"Violet; are you okay?"
"Yeah"
"Well, come out here."
She shifts and then moves slowly to stand up once again and walk over to him. Tate's got a cut on one side of his bottom lip and it blots cherry red on his skin—while one eye is black and blue up to the line of his brow. They'd gotten a few good swings in before he actually scared them off, but the evidence wouldn't linger on his flesh for long. He doesn't seem too bothered by it.
Instead, he bends over to retrieve her white t-shirt from the floor and then works to help her tug it back on so it falls loosely over daintily carved shoulders. She feels like a child again and she hates it more than anything she's ever felt before now.
"I'm sorry."
"For what? You saved me."
"I know, but I can tell it makes you uncomfortable."
"Since when have you cared about that?" She regrets it the second it leaves her lips, but she doesn't know how to feel and she's quite sure her brain shut down the second the three males tried to make a pass at her.
Tate doesn't respond to it—he just sort of hangs his head lightly and shoves his hands into his pockets. He wants to leave, she can see it in the way he shifts.
"Why'd you do it?" She asks him suddenly.
"Do what?"
"You know what I mean. Why'd you save me? It's not like I've got a life to lose; pain doesn't really mean so much anymore—So why'd you do it? You could have just left me to fend for myself. I don't need to be coddled."
"I know."
"So then why?"
"Because you would have cried afterward. I can't stand to see you cry."
His answer brings her amber eyes to snap up and study his face incredulously. For whatever reason, she hadn't been expecting his response to be anything of the like and it confuses her in ways she can't grasp. She just stares at him for a moment as if she's trying to solve a math problem that was written in font way too small to make out—he simply sighs and avoids her gaze in general.
"And what about you; would you have just sat down there and listened to it happen? Would you have cried?"
"Yes."
"Yes to what?"
"Yes to both." His voice is quiet. They're speaking hypothetically now and it's doing no good.
Violet takes a moment to collect her thoughts, before speaking again. "You know, that's how my mom felt. She cried after she was raped." It's obvious to both of them what she's referring to because her mom had been in the same position once with a man in a rubber suit. Different, but it was all the same in the end.
"Your mom's not you."
"So then why did you fuck her?" she asked; her words sharp and biting.
"Would you still hate me if it had been you instead?"
The question makes her lashes lower and bile rise up into her throat. She'd been caught for a loop—she hadn't anticipated it and she's never really asked herself such an important question.
"I don't know."
"Then why are you bitching about it?"
"Because you're no better than them." She means the three teenage boys he just beat to shit and then scared off.
"You know, a simple 'thank you' for saving your ass would suffice. You don't have to turn everything into something it's not," Tate snaps. He's angry and she can see it in the way he looks at her. "Hating you is really fucking exhausting, Violet—and I know it is for you too."
"You don't know anything."
"I know you."
"Go away." And she really means it this time, so he's gone in the blink of an eye.
Silence hangs over her and she lets the attic crumple in and swallow her up whole. In Tate's absence, she actually misses him; feels alone and afraid without him—things she hasn't felt in a long time and it scares her.
Scares her more than anything she's ever known.